This past Saturday evening my wife and I had settled down to watch TV while we cycled thru some laundry. About 8pm she mentioned to me that she smelled something burning so I got up to investigate. Opened the laundry room door and it was hot in there and reeked of smoke. I quickly shut off the dryer and looked around for any signs of fire. There was only a small amount of smoke that came out when I opened the dryer door and I couldn’t see any actual fire. I thought maybe a belt had gotten stuck or something. I monitored it for a while and the smell started to dissipate a bit. I was nervous about going to bed so I stayed up a while to keep an eye on it.

The next day I pulled the dryer away from the wall and took the rear panel off. I found that a layer of lint had settled on the exhaust tube inside the dryer and the heat from the exhaust had actually caught the lint on fire. Most of it was charred and there was even a spot of ashes. I think we caught it just in time. I got my shop-vac out and got busy cleaning out all the lint that had accumulated in there. I recently replaced the vent tube from the dryer to the wall so that section was new and clean.

Miraculously no damage was done to the dryer itself. Once it was all cleaned and put back together, it worked fine. (Actually dries the clothes in about ˝ the time it took before).

I’m sure we all know that we “need” to check on this, but it’s not exactly an easy or convenient thing to do. You have to pull the dryer from the wall and disassemble the back of it to clean it this way. So if you’re dryer hasn’t been cleaned internally in more than 2 yrs (mine was going on about 8 yrs!) please do it (or hire someone out to do it). I will be doing mine annually from now on.

Thanks for the reminder. I just happend to clean out my dryer for this very same reason (No fire or anything) but its a nightmare senario. throw in a load of clothes to dry and take off only to come home and your house has caught fire. So the 30 min's its going to take you to pull the dryer apart and clean out your vents is worth the piece of mind alone thanks for the nudge.

Happened to my housemates and I once years ago - my girlfriend and I had just gotten to sleep when we heard weird noises and I open the bedroom door to see my roommate fanning open flames leaping from the dryer door. House smelled terrible for days. Worth the time to check it out!

Train, unfortunately i think you'll have to pull the back off the machine to clean it properly. Just sucking it out from the vent tube won't get it. That'll only get what's built up inside the exhaust tube. what you can't get is what made its way inside the dryer itself. This is the stuff that settles on top of the vent tube inside that gets really hot and can ignite.